Spaceman
by Workparty
Summary: It's a dream come true for Danny; a job with NASA (however temporary), and a round-trip ticket to space. The only thing that could distract him are a few ghosts from the past...
1. Chapter 1: Human

A switch was thrown, the sound lost in the vacuum around it; the radio silence was instead filled with a voice, tired yet alert. "Switching to upgraded battery modules A-1 and A-2. Diagnostics are green. Stand by for link, in 3... 2... 1."

A beep and a crackle preceded the reply. "That's a negative on the link Commander, we've got no data on the ground. Engineering recommends a diagnostic check on the comms subsystem." The voice on the ground dripped with cool confidence. Even when things went wrong, mission controllers prided themselves on sounding as though it was just another day at the office.

"Roger. _Endeavour_ , Commander Lindsey requesting a lift to HST equipment bay number 5."

A third voice now joined. It sounded like Dr. McArthur, speaking from the relative safety of the space shuttle just a few yards away. "Roger that Commander. Mission Specialist Phantom, do you copy?"

Danny Phantom jolted back to awareness. The 15-year-old had been caught up staring out into the vastness of space, looking for landmarks. He had spent enough nights in his life outside looking skyward from hillsides or rooftops that he knew his way around the night sky quite well. Sirius to Rigel. Rigel to Orion's Belt. Orion's Belt to Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse to Alhena. On and on he went, with nothing to obstruct his view.

Sadly, the view would have to wait. "Copy that _Endeavour_. Unclip your tether and hold onto your hat, Steven!" Danny grinned behind the helmet visor as he glided back toward the Hubble Space Telescope at a speed not much more than a brisk walk, but certainly faster than the astronaut would be expecting.

"A helmet doesn't count as wearing a ha-aaaaaahhhh...!" Commander Lindsey was cut off abruptly, first by the sensation of two arms grabbing him around the waist of his spacesuit, followed by a cold tingle as his entire being was turned intangible and shunted directly through the telescope. The pair re-emerged on the other side, directly where he needed to be.

Danny came to a complete stop before letting go. "Equipment bay 5, here you are Commander."

"Thank you Phantom, although a little bit more notice would be appreciated next time," replied the astronaut. The reply had been dry, but even if the two hadn't been facing each other, Danny would have heard the smile in his voice. "Houston, this is Commander Lindsey. Mission Specialist Phantom and I have been through the Hubble and can verify that its internal structure seems sound. Now preparing to run diagnostic."

Another beep before the calming voice was back. "Copy that, Commander. Phantom, while we're all immensely grateful for your assistance up there, Medical wishes to ask that you try harder to avoid giving Commander Lindsey a heart attack. His heart rate and BP haven't spiked like that since launch. They... Also wish to know how you're feeling."

The teen kicked back against the empty space and folded his arms behind his head as if he were lying down on the ground. "I feel fine Houston, I'm just enjoying the view from up here. Please remind Medical that a heart rate of 0 and a core temperature of 40 are completely normal for me."

"Roger that. The Flight Surgeon just wishes to add that we have your temperature at 5 degrees Celsius, not 40 degrees Fahrenheit. He also wants me to mention that you've already told that joke twice this week."

The radio lapsed back into silence. For a while, all there was to distract Danny from the field of stars before him was the low drone of the air circulation fans in his suit. Merak to Dubhe. Dubhe to Polaris.

One of his earliest memories came unbidden to the front of his mind. It had been the family camping trip to Wyoming in 1994; just him, his sister, and their parents. Far away from city lights, the view was crisp and clean, if not quite as immaculate as it was from space.

"Do you remember why we call it Polaris?" asked Maddie Fenton.

"Because it's points straight up!" Danny had replied happily. It was at least 9 pm. Jack had left to put Jazz to bed in the RV, leaving Danny and his mother to watch the stars by the dying embers of the fire.

His mother chuckled at that. "You mean straight north, sweetie. All the stars are 'up'."

That got the 4-year-old curious. "Mom," Danny said with a slight frown, "what's up in space?"

"I don't know," she replied, turning to face him, "but maybe you could find out some day. The people who help us find out about space are called 'astronauts'. They're a kind of really brave scientist."

"You mean like you and dad?"

She had just laughed at that. They stayed up until well past 10, just looking up and talking. Danny listened with rapt attention every time his mother would point out a constellation or a unique star. It became a frequent occurrence over the next few years, although their nights of stargazing became less and less common as he had grown up. First, there was the ghost research. Next came her ghost hunting with his dad. Funnily enough, Danny mused, it had probably been his own competing ghost hunting that had really been the final nail in the coffin.

He was once again snapped back to attention by the voice of Steven Lindsey. "Houston, Commander Lindsey. Diagnostics reveal some strange interference patterns on the low-gain antenna. It seems to be unrelated to the upgrade work. Am I go to reroute through the auxiliary signal processing unit?"

"Roger that Commander, you are go. Switch to the high-gain if necessary, Engineering wants to see those diagnostic results just as soon as we have telemetry."

"Copy all Houston. Rerouting to the auxiliary system. Link in 3... 2... 1."

"Roger, we have the link." Applause could be heard in the background, before quieting down enough for them to hear the mission controller again. "That clapping you're hearing is for you guys. These upgrades will leave Hubble capable of operating until _well_ past 2010. When you get back to Florida I think you'll have a few people wanting to buy you a beer. Most of you, anyway."

Danny couldn't hold back a laugh. "I think I can settle for a cola, Houston."

"Copy that Phantom, it would be the least we could do. Without your maneuverability, STS-122 wouldn't have been able to get the telescope repaired and refurbished in only 2 spacewalks."

"Happy to help. I had always wanted to be an astronaut," Danny paused for a moment before adding, "The fact that I probably hold the record for most hours outside a spacecraft without a tether is just the icing on the cake."

"It might be a while before that makes it to the records book, Phantom. Remember, officially, you weren't on this mission, nor do you work for NASA."

The droll voice of the mission's commander interjected. "If we're done discussing the top-secret nature of this whole mission, any chance we can get back to the shuttle, Phantom?" he said before adding, "150 meters seems a lot farther when you can't fly."

An observer situated a few hundred feet away would have seen an astronaut propelling themselves through the vast emptiness as if by magic, a smooth motion that should have been impossible even without the bulky spacesuit. They would have seen this astronaut grab onto the other, now floating freely about 3 feet away from the Hubble. Finally, they would have seen the second astronaut drop a power tool in shock as the two suddenly started hurtling back toward the space shuttle _Endeavour_ , barrel rolling as they went.

This observer would not have heard a thing, of course. The sound would be lost on human ears in the vacuum of space. But the sight was not lost on a pair of very non-human eyes.

* * *

Author's Note:

 _I have decided to start posting some fanfiction here. Since it is October, the show involving ghosts seemed the natural choice to me (although the exact contents may have been just as much influenced by recently watching the film_ Gravity _..._ ). _I do not write nearly as often as I should, so feedback of any kind is very much appreciated. You can expect part two up tomorrow, most likely._


	2. Chapter 2: Joyride

The slow hissing sound was still barely audible as the chamber slowly pressurized, although it stood out sharply against the last few minutes of complete silence. Both the occupants of the airlock were floating in place, and so for Danny Phantom the heavy bolts locking the hatch shut and the cargo bay doors heaving closed behind them had passed unheard. Commander Lindsey hadn't said a word on the radio, either, apparently still recovering from their acrobatic return to the shuttle.

Some quick mental math suggested it would be at least another 5 minutes before it would be safe to start undoing straps and clips; Danny may not have needed the oxygen, but he wasn't particularly keen to see how his body would react to a partial vacuum. He was worried the answer would be "painfully". Besides that, he wanted to avoid rapidly decompressing the apparently quite expensive, custom-tailored space suit.

Danny was still contemplating worst-case scenarios when he was startled by a voice in his ear. "I still can't believe they're keeping such a tight lid on your involvement in this mission."

He turned toward Commander Lindsey, the man looking back at him with the barest trace of a frown. "Yeah, well, I'm thankful. When you have a government agency trying to track you down for capture and experimentation, suddenly it seems risky having a couple dozen scientists and engineers knowing exactly where you are at all times." On seeing the Commander's expression deepen, he tried to play it off with a grin, adding, "Not that I'm complaining. It's not every day a kid like me gets to work with NASA and save a space telescope. When I heard the service mission was at risk of getting canceled, I just had to reach out and offer to help."

"And that's just my point Phantom. If we had delayed this mission, we risked losing Hubble before the next flight arrived in... Well, who knows how many years it would be. You should be getting a parade when we land, not a quick getaway in an unmarked car."

Danny could swear he felt a blush rising in his cheeks. Lindsey seemed to take his silence as an invitation to continue, when suddenly the hiss of rushing air abruptly stopped and the overhead light flashed from red to green. This time, they both heard the loud knock as the hatch unlocked before it swung open to reveal the smiling form of Dr. McArthur.

"Welcome back guys! Enjoy the flight, Lindsey?" A slight shudder was apparently the response she had been looking for, giving a sharp laugh before pushing off the doorframe toward Danny. She winked at him before starting to help him out of the bulky space suit. "Man, Phantom, I wish we had gotten that little maneuver on tape. You must have corkscrewed like 8 times!"

The sickly groan that followed gave her pause before she turned to the hatch and called out, "Hey, Johnson, want to give Lindsey a hand with his suit? He's looking a little green behind the gills."

The pilot came floating in, coming to a stop next to his target. "I'm not surprised," he said as he pushed Lindsey's awkward, gloved hands away from the helmet clasps. Captain Johnson had soon removed the commander's helmet with practiced ease. "But hey, look at it this way Lindsey, at least you didn't actually puke."

It was another 20 minutes before Danny was finally free of the cumbersome space suit. The torso, with its bulky electronics and life support systems, was always the worst part. Even weightless, it was incredibly difficult to take it off; back on Earth, it would have been impossible. Despite the fact that he was still wearing a full-body hazmat suit, he was left feeling comparatively under-dressed.

He glided through the cramped room adjoining the airlock. His three crew-mates were already back at work, busy with experiments and post-spacewalk reports to NASA. The primary mission may have been the Hubble Space Telescope, but their schedule still left little time for relaxing. In that way, not being a scientist or a fully trained astronaut, Danny got off lucky. Up here, high above the troubles of Amity Park, time was one thing he had. He softly came to a stop against the opposite wall, before jumping into the empty flight deck.

Even through the narrow windows, the Earth looked stunning at night. The city lights of Europe and North Africa were painted onto the landscape below, the Mediterranean Sea conspicuous by its darkness. He supposed that would make it late afternoon back home, and he found himself wondering what Sam and Tucker were up to. He hoped they had managed to get as much relaxation out of the closing weeks of summer as he had in the 12 days since he had left for Florida.

The planet rolled away out of view, and Danny once more found his gaze and thoughts drawn skyward. High above the surface, Cassiopeia sat regally on her throne. Perseus held his post below her, sword held aloft. Following the imaginary line, Taurus the bull reared up, ready to charge. Over the bull's shoulder, he could clearly see the brightest stars of the Pleiades cluster; the "Seven Sisters" twinkled a vibrant blue against the backdrop of space.

"Danny, you've really got to listen to me. I can tell you're stressed out, and holding it back can't be good for your psyche!" It was November. His own sister, Jazz, had been trying to get him to talk about his recent outbursts for a few days. Danny was doing his best to avoid her, but she had cornered him next to his locker. He grabbed his notebook as she continued, "You can't just bury it forever, or you'll end go crazy from the strain."

He slammed his locker shut and spun to face her. "Jazz, for the last time, I'm not crazy!" he had practically shouted, throwing his hands into the air as he did so. Only when he heard the book he had sent flying land at his feet with a soft _fwop_ did he realize several people were staring as they walked by.

She rolled her eyes as he started to pick up his things. "Yeah, you're a real beacon of sanity, brother."

He wanted to tell her exactly what he had been seeing. Youngblood had been terrorizing him for half a week by that point, and he had barely slept. He wanted to tell her that he had fought dozens of other ghosts, too, and even saved the world a few times. He wanted to tell her that it _was_ starting to wear down on him. But he didn't think he could tell her any of that; and if he couldn't be honest about Danny Phantom, he could deflect the question as Danny Fenton.

"The absolute last thing I need when I'm getting stalked by ghosts is to come under attack from kind of psycho-analytical-monster, Jazz."

She had seemed hurt by that remark. "I'm not a monster, Danny. I'm your sister. I know we've never been that close, but you know I'm there for you, right? Everybody needs help now and then."

"Phantom?"

He just about kicked the man in front of him out of instinct, as he was sharply brought back to the present. Recovering, he grinned and said "Heh, sorry about that Captain. I think I may have spaced out a little."

The pilot smiled at the little joke. "I can see why. It's my first trip up here, too." He pointed out the side window. "Looks like we're passing over the Indian Ocean. We oughta see the sunrise in a few minutes."

The two sat in silence for a moment. As they approached Australia, the sun peaked over the horizon, the characteristic ray of green visible for just a moment before the sun flared up in its blinding glory. It was the 36th sunrise Danny had seen in three days. He felt just as awestruck now as he had the first time. "Wow," he said quietly, "I didn't know you could see the green flash from outside the atmosphere."

When Danny looked, he noticed Captain Johnson's brow was furrowed. "You... Can't."

Things moved suddenly. The two heard the sound of a pump activate, a fraction of a second before the roar of combustion; the shuttle lurched quite suddenly to Danny's right, pushing him and Johnson lightly against the left side of the cockpit.

A yelp of surprise came from below them, followed by the voice of Commander Lindsey. "Johnson, report! Why is the Orbital Maneuvering System firing? We aren't due for the reentry burn for another 12 hours!"

The pilot was just as surprised. "I don't know, I'm not controlling it! Somebody get NASA on the line."

An exchange followed below them in the mid-deck. "McArthur, any luck?"

"No dice Commander, something's wrong with the radio."

"Damnit. Johnson, try shutting it down manually!"

Johnson nodded. "Roger that, moving to manual Aerozine fuel cutoff." He took a step toward the pilot's seat before the OMS thrusters abruptly stopped. A moment passed before they reactivated. This time, the occupants were pushed forward as the shuttle itself lurched backward. Johnson was sent headlong into the control panels at the front of the flight deck, and with a sickening _crack_ , he went limp in the air.

"Get up here you two, Johnson's been hurt!" Danny rushed to the crewman's side as the thrusters stopped once more. He gave Johnson a light shake; nothing. _Oh man,_ Danny thought to himself, _Why have I gone this long without teaching myself any first aid?_

Lindsey was next to him in a moment and put a hand in front of Johnson's mouth. "Good. He's still breathing. Now we just need to figure out what the hell caused the OMS to fire by itself."

"Uh, Lindsey?" Dr. McArthur had taken the Commander's seat at the front and was pointing at a CRT monitor showing their orbit overlaid on a map of the Earth. "You'd better figure it out fast, or we're going to crash in the middle of Russia."

* * *

Author's Note

 _Hello. o/ Thank you to those who have been reading, I have enjoyed the feedback left so far. Here is part two. I hope it does not seem overly wordy. Part three will be out tomorrow, and I believe it will be more action-oriented. It will also be the end of the story I set out to tell._

 _Of course, feedback is always appreciated._

 _Updated 11/10/2016: Grammar pass._


	3. Chapter 3: Spaceman

Danny felt as though he had been dunked in ice water. He supposed that must be a fairly common reaction to being told you had around 45 minutes left to live.

The Commander was the first to recover. "OK people, priorities," he said, having apparently already weighed the options, "Johnson is going to need first aid. The sooner he wakes up, the sooner we can start thinking about our options for landing. McArthur, you're the aerospace engineer, take Phantom and fix the comms. Tear it apart if you have to, but we need to get NASA on the radio." He didn't wait for a reply before grabbing the first aid kit and setting to work.

Once downstairs, Danny found his voice again. "So what exactly is wrong with the radio?" He looked around the room for a moment before adding, "Also, which one of these is the radio?"

McArthur motioned toward a group of panels covered in switches, knobs, indicator lights, and LCD monitors. It was all labeled with unhelpful acronyms, but Danny was pretty sure from the flashing red lights and erratic readouts that this was not working normally.

Apparently sensing his conclusion, McArthur stated simply, "Yeah, it's not meant to be doing that." She pointed out one screen in particular. "See this waveform? We're getting a ridiculous amount of noise on all four of the low-gain antennas. You'd think we were flying through the middle of a solar storm if it didn't seem to only be affecting the frequencies we use for communication."

Danny's eyes narrowed. That was suspicious; first the Hubble, and now the shuttle? Something was niggling at the back of his mind. There were just too many coincidences. "Hey Doc, let me try something." He backed away from the panels a bit, before charging up an ectoblast in his hands. The plasma arced between his palms, flame-like tendrils licking at the air off his fingertips. "Is it me, or does it look like the noise got worse?"

She looked at the screen, before nodding in agreement. "It's definitely jumpier. You aren't suggesting there's a ghost involved, are you?"

Danny let the energy dissipate before answering. As the flames died, he felt chilled again. "I have my suspicions," he said, knowing there was only one man who might want to sabotage a mission with him on board and had the resources to do it too. "And I have a pretty good idea about who—"

At that, he was tackled from behind, falling directly through the floor and out of the spacecraft.

The pain quickly overtook surprise. The air was forced from his chest and his skin stung like he had just jumped into a vat of fizzing soda. Driven by instinct, he found himself pushing forward off the attacker, teeth clenched. He spun around to face his pursuer.

The ghost was green, with fierce red eyes. It was clearly some kind of canine, although unlike Vlad's earlier abominations it looked more like a terrier or a husky than a wolf. He frowned at that, knowing if Sam were here she'd be pissed. He didn't feel great about it either. _"How many animals has Vlad killed to use as cannon fodder?_ _This could have been somebody's pet!_ _"_

It growled fiercely and snapped at Danny. The gesture was entirely silent, but carried the point across perfectly; maybe it was tragic, but it was also still a threat. The dog leaped forward to catch him, but the teen saw it coming and dodged to the side. The attacker sailed past, before skidding to a stop against the nonexistent ground. As it spun around to face him again, Danny charged another ball of ghostly energy. Instead of remaining contained between his hands, however, the plasma clung to his gloves and crawled up his arms. He was still trying to shake it off when he felt the dog bite his leg.

The pained scream was silent as his flailing attempts to get out of the dog's strong grip sent them both cartwheeling. One of his kicks finally hit true, and the dog tumbled away through space. For a brief moment, he felt a pang of guilt before it steadied itself and turned around for another charge. This time, Danny was ready. Just as the dog approached him, he swiped his hands and let forth a repulsive wave of energy, sending the poor mutt careening off into the distance.

In pain, out of breath, and bleeding from one leg, he grabbed the only nearby object he could and threw it at the dog's receding figure for good measure. With some embarrassment, Danny realized he had just thrown away the power tool Lindsey had mentioned losing earlier. For the moment, though, that seemed like the least of his concerns.

He got back into the Shuttle as quickly as possible, drawing a panicked shout from Dr. McArthur as he phased through the floor directly next to her. "Jesus, Phantom! I've met sharks with less terrifying entrances than that!"

Danny barely heard her. After spending scarcely a minute in a vacuum, he was keenly aware of the air pressure painfully forcing open his lungs and pushing back against his body. "Not what I meant... When I said... I wanted to be a spaceman..." He was panting heavily, although he didn't feel like he was getting any air.

McArthur's voice turned to concern. "Phantom?"

He flopped face-first against the floor, despite an apparent lack of gravity.

"Are you OK?"

He raised his head to look at his father. The enormous man had sat down next to him on the floor of the kitchen. It was a stupid question. Danny knew his dad could see that he had been crying, and it wasn't every day a fourth grader got sent home for fighting.

When he didn't say anything, Jack just added, "The principal said you'd hit another boy. Do you want to talk about it?"

Danny just pressed his face back down into the kitchen floor. The cool linoleum was comforting. "Dash is such a jerk and I'm sick of it."

They were both silent for a few minutes before he heard his dad sigh. "Danny, there's nothing wrong with defending yourself from bullies..." Danny shuffled to a sitting position. "...but you can't just swing at another kid's legs with a baseball bat."

The response was fierce. "What am I supposed to do then? He shoves me into lockers every day and beats up other kids all the time! If he twisted his stupid ankle he deserved it!"

That hung in the air for a moment. "...sometimes, it isn't about responding to violence with more violence. Sometimes bravery is about holding back enough to show them what you're made of, without having to hurt them just as bad as they've hurt you."

That did very little to console the child on the floor. His dad stood up and offered Danny his hand. "Now come on, let's go rent that 'Phantom Menace' movie you've been wanting to see." At his son's confused expression, Jack just added, "Danny, even if you got into trouble today, Dash _is_ a jerk, and you're still a good kid. That counts for something."

They stayed up late that night, eating Fenton Popcorn and watching Star Wars on VHS. Danny nodded off and barely stirred when he felt strong arms picking him up and laying him down in bed.

He took a gasping breath and moved to sit upright. He spent the next few seconds recovering from hitting his head on the bunk directly above him. Lindsey was floating next to him. "Well Phantom, the good news is, your lungs are fine. But it seems like your spatial awareness could be better."

Danny groaned. "I take it since you're in a joking mood, we're not all about to die?"

The Commander nodded. "McArthur deployed the high-gain dish antenna and we made contact with Houston. For some reason, it wasn't affected by the... space-ghost." The phrase clearly sat uncomfortably on the man's tongue. "Ground control gave us a flight plan that puts us down at an emergency landing site in Spain. Johnson is awake again, and he'll be flying manually since we'll have to stow the dish before we hit the atmosphere."

"Terrific," he said lying back down, "Hopefully the ghost dog doesn't attack again while we're flying blind at Mach 25."

That wasn't what Lindsey had wanted to hear. "Is that a possibility?"

"I've found other ghosts like this one can be annoyingly persistent."

"Well. We'll just have to be ready to cross that bridge when we come to it. You'd better get up to the flight deck and buckle in, we're going to skip off the atmosphere above California in about 5 minutes. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

* * *

Author's Note:

 _Yes, I am a horrible tease. In the end, I split the last chapter into two parts since it turned out to be about twice as long as the two previous ones. The finale will be out either this time tomorrow or possibly later today._

 _Do let me know what you think. These are new waters for me, and I promise I will not bite. ;)_


	4. Chapter 4: The World We Live In

Danny couldn't help but think the shuttle's maneuvering thrusters sounded more like overpowered aerosol cans than pieces of precision-engineered rocketry. He felt his stomach drop gently as the rockets fired from below, pitching them up. The California coast, which had just begun peeking over the horizon, disappeared from view as the _Endeavour_ 's nose came to point at the sun. A second later, the rockets fired again, expertly stopping their somersault.

He heard the pilot's voice through his flight suit's headset. "If we hold this pitch, we should hit the atmosphere at 45 degrees. Though I can't say I've ever had to manually control the angle-of-attack like this before, and—" Johnson looked around at his three crew mates, faces wearing varying levels of concern, "Hey, you know, it'll be fine. Skip off the atmosphere, aim for Spain, put it down on the big stretch of runway in Zaragoza. Easy stuff."

"...Right." The Commander came as close to sounding nervous as Danny had ever heard. He also noted that McArthur was tightening her seat's harness, and found himself doing the same before Lindsey continued, "We've got about a minute before the atmosphere really starts biting down on us. Doctor McArthur, shut down the high-gain antenna. Phantom, as soon as that dish is stowed, close the cargo bay doors."

McArthur flipped a pair of switches above her seat; the motors now swinging the dish inward to the safety of the cargo bay could be heard rumbling in the distance. After a few seconds, a few indicator lights toggled. "Dish is stowed away and locked, we are a go to close payload bay doors."

Danny nodded and turned to a nearby keyboard. Closing the doors was fairly straightforward. Bring in the port side doors, then the starboard side, and then latch the two halves together. A few simple keystrokes could handle the process automatically, except—

 _Beep._ Danny read the error message, that icy terror creeping back into the pit of his stomach. "Uh, guys? The drive motor is registering a jam."

"Probably just a faulty sensor. Override it and continue." Well, McArthur _was_ the aerospace engineer here...

He tapped a few keys and tried again; the grinding sound that followed confirmed it was not a faulty sensor. Danny aborted the operation before it did permanent damage. "Damn it, I'm going to go check if something got caught in there."

Ahead of him, Johnson nodded. "Good. I'm already starting to feel the extra drag. I can try to counter the pitch with the OMS, but that'll be useless if we don't get those doors closed before they slow us down too much. Unless you want to see if I can land this thing in the ocean, that is."

Danny shivered. "Got it. I fix the doors, you close them, and then we don't die."

He exhaled sharply and phased backward into the payload bay. He was ready this time, and the sudden decrease in pressure seemed less drastic than his first unscheduled extravehicular activity.

His quarry was ready too, however. Danny was quickly bowled over by a green blur, and he found himself pinned to the floor, looking up at the growling face of the same ghostly dog that had attacked him earlier.

He jerked his left shoulder up. The dog's reaction was to shift its weight to keep him pinned, as expected; as the ghostly attacker was moving, Danny pushed his right side off of the ground, rolling out from under the pin. Pressing his advantage, he pinned the dog and punched its side several times, before it went intangible and escaped his grip.

From the unearthly chill on his spine, Danny could tell the dog was now approaching him from behind. Buzzing with adrenaline and physically in pain, he threw a right haymaker and blindly missed his target. The other ghost dodged left, before stopping midair to come in for another pass, teeth gnashing.

The bite landed on his right shoulder, and it took several agonizing seconds to shake the dog loose, throwing it a few feet away in the process. _"_ _Come on, c_ _oncentrate._ _Don't swing wildly. Easy, measured moves_ _."_ Danny attempted to ignore the pain of his buzzing skin and lungs, and the shallow cuts to his shoulder. The dog had scrambled to its feet. He adopted the best sparring stance he could manage. They examined each other for a beat.

Then, it leaped at him, going for the neck. Danny threw up his elbow in a block, connecting to the beast's skull with a sickening _crack_. It fell to the floor in a heap.

"Phantom, no pressure," though the Commander's urgent voice on the radio suggested otherwise, "but we're getting low on maneuvering fuel here, and those doors _really_ aren't meant to take this kind of heat."

Danny looked on either side of him. As the shuttle dipped slightly he could see shock waves coming off the cargo bay doors as they slammed into the atmosphere, the ionized air glowing a dark orange. The thrusters fired somewhere below them, bringing the nose back up. The worst of the fiery display subsided, but the metal was clearly feeling the heat, some of the panels glowing a dim red.

 _"Ok, it's time to finish this."_ Standing above his prone enemy, Danny raised his fist and charged up for a final ghost ray.

He paused. The dog was making no effort to get up. It looked... Pitiful, like this. Like he had just chastised a wayward puppy for chewing on his shoes. _"None... None of Vlad's other minions have acted like this before. What is with this dog?"_ at the thought, Danny lowered his arm. At the motion, the dog's ears perked up. It got unsteadily to its feet and walked over to Danny. He barely had time to decide if he wanted to trust the creature before it nuzzled its head against his hand.

She was in a faraway place. It was a snowy day, but she wouldn't complain. She liked the cold. People gave her more food when it was like this, apparently feeling sorry for the street dog even while her fur kept her perfectly comfortable.

Strong people grabbed her. She spent some time in a cage, and then some time on a table while people looked at her, poking and prodding while they did so. For a while, she switched between the two, the cage and the table, but she wouldn't complain. They were feeding her well, and the people told her she was a good dog. That made her happy.

Soon, she was surrounded by different people. Lots of people. They all said she was a great dog; a hero. That made her happy, too.

Then... The loneliness. And the panic. She was in a small metal room, like the cage, but it was shaking violently, and she couldn't see outside of it. She barked and barked, but it seemed like nobody heard her. And the heat... The stale air just kept getting hotter, and hotter.

She didn't like this heat. She wanted to go home. Soon, as if in answer, everything was cold again.

Danny gasped and jerked his hand back from the ghost before him. He was incredibly disoriented, but the dog was happily wagging its tail. As the strange creature ran off to one side of the area around them, he was suddenly very aware of where he was; on the floor of the shuttle's still wide-open payload bay, flames shooting past them, the roar of the super-heated air clearly audible. He spotted the dog searching around the hinges on the fuselage, the entire door assembly practically incandescent with heat. There was a voice in his ear, hardly audible over the din.

"Phantom?! Damn it Phantom, report! We need to get those doors closed **now** , or we're liable to explode before we make it over the eastern seaboard!"

Danny almost missed the _clink_ that reverberated through his body from the floor. He looked down; the dog was sitting in front of him. It had just dropped something in front of him and seemed to be waiting expectantly. He recognized the power tool he had thrown after it during their first encounter.

Danny had a hunch. He keyed his mic. "Commander, this is Mission Specialist Phantom. Resume shuttle bay close procedure, I believe the blockage has been resolved."

A moment later, the doors began to swing closed above them, one after the other. He grinned and ruffled the dog's fur before phasing them back inside the flight deck.

"I found the culprit, and—" He stopped suddenly. All eyes were forward, having missed his entrance. He could see why, too; the view was much worse from here. The shuttle was clearly dropping quickly, and the ground, barely visible through the flames, was already too close for comfort. Worse yet, they were pointed straight at the ground, rather than approaching at Johnson's carefully planned angle of descent. The pilot was still struggling with the controls, trying to raise the nose through sheer force of will.

Commander Lindsey was on the radio. "Houston in the blind, this is _Endeavour_. We are entering the atmosphere nose-first. If we don't explode first, prepare the runway at Kennedy Space Center, because we're coming in hot. Repeat, we are coming in for an emergency landing!"

Without thinking, Danny instinctively clutched at the dog by his side. This was bad. In spite of what passed for Lindsey's optimism, it was highly likely the shuttle would overheat and explode long before Johnson would be able to pull out of the dive. He hoped dearly that he wouldn't experience burning to death twice in one day, especially since it seemed the second time might be permanent.

Then he felt the frost creeping up his arm. The air in the room dropped like a stone, and it wasn't hard to see the source. He released his grip on the dog as he realized the freezing cold canine was deep in concentration, sucking the heat right out of the structure she stood on.

McArthur was the only one capable of turning her head enough to see what was going on. "Whoa, Phantom, what the hell is your dog doing?"

Before Danny could respond, Commander Lindsey half shouted into his microphone. "What's going on back there? The fuselage temperature is dropping, and it sure isn't because of that fireball we're flying into."

"The ghost that was giving us trouble earlier, she's pulling heat off the shuttle! Is it doing enough for us to land safely?" Safe seemed a relative term as the flaming air was still taking up very nearly the entire view out the front window, even if they were no longer feeling its effects.

"It just might be. We just need to hold it together until we're no longer doing Mach twenty-something." Johnson sounded cautious, but Danny would take it. "At this rate, I'll have control back in three minutes."

It was the tensest three minutes of Danny's life. Throughout it, he just stroked the whimpering dog next to him, holding them and the rest of the orbiter at well below freezing. The silence was only broken when Johnson announced they were now going slower than the speed of sound, at which point a cheer went up, and their ghostly savior seemed to shudder. As she laid down on the floor next to Danny, glowing aura seeming to fade, the temperature began to creep back up to normal. She seemed to sigh with exhaustion, closing her eyes.

And then she was gone.

* * *

Author's Note:

 _Dear me. These final 2500 words ultimately took longer to write than the preceding 4800. I must admit to having experienced a certain amount of writer's block, the fix for which was to tap into my script-writing background and write beat sheets for this, the final full chapter, as well as the epilog. I can only hope that this has not resulted in a more stilted piece. Or at least, not more stilted than I normally believe my writing to be. ;)_

 _In any event. The epilog is also completed and fully edited, and so if it is not up by the time you are reading these words, something has gone horribly awry._


	5. Epilog: Goodnight, Travel Well

_Do be sure you have read chapter 4 before this; both were published within a few minutes of each other._

* * *

It was relatively quiet now, as the pilot flew the orbiter through a series of banking turns to slow down as they approached the long runway. Nobody said a word for a long time until they rolled to a stop, the parachutes slowly deflating behind them. There were questions being asked, although he didn't quite hear them.

It occurred to Danny that Lindsey and Johnson hadn't actually seen the spirit that had saved them. He heard McArthur explaining what had happened, although even she hardly knew all the details. He just wanted to leave the space where the other ghost had breathed her last.

The drive from the space shuttle's landing site was quiet. The car was the kind of black sedan with tinted windows that drew little enough attention to be conspicuous, but Danny couldn't particularly bring himself to care at the moment. The questions of what had gone wrong with the mission and the media rumors of a VIP being ferried away from the stricken vessel shortly after its landing would not be his to answer, and he was glad for that. He was just _tired_. It had been an exhausting two weeks, and he was still trying to come to terms with its ending.

Before he boarded the private jet awaiting his arrival at the small private airstrip, he had been handed the mission patch. The outer lettering only read "Lindsey ✦ Johnson ✦ McArthur", the official crew of STS-122. Danny ran a gloved thumb over the stitched graphic of the Hubble Space Telescope soaring high above the planet, staring unblinking out into the depths of space. He smiled a bit at the green trail that blazed behind it; a subtle nod to his own contribution, perhaps. Not many people would ever know about the fourth crew member who had made the mission possible, and fewer still would know about the trouble-making fifth whose sacrifice had been even greater.

Before he knew it, he was back in Amity Park. It must have been very nearly midnight; an apparently identical black sedan picked him up and met very little traffic before dropping him off at an alley near Fentonworks. Safely unobserved by human eyes, Danny Phantom changed back to Danny Fenton. After a few moments spent working the kinks out of stagnant joints, he grabbed his bag from the pile of crates it had been carefully hidden in and slung it over his shoulder. He suspected he would have little trouble appearing weathered from his two weeks spent "camping".

As he approached the sidewalk, he heard an excited bark from down the street. It was a dog. It was hard to tell lit only by streetlights, but it looked like a terrier-husky cross, its tongue lolling out and tail wagging. When blue eyes met brown, it trotted over and licked his hand. The saliva was cold enough to elicit a smile of recognition from the teen. Apparently satisfied, the canine turned down the alley Danny had emerged from and disappeared into the darkness.

He still had a stupid grin on his face as he walked up the steps to his front door. Perhaps, this time, the universe would allow everyone to get the homecoming they needed.

In spite of the late hour, Jazz, Maddie, and Jack were all watching the news on TV when he entered. They exchanged smiles and hugs before the tired teen made his excuses and headed for bed. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped.

"Hey, before I call it a night," Danny turned to face his family, who were returning to the sofa, "does anybody feel like going stargazing?"

* * *

Author's Note:

 _Was this ending too sappy? Too quick? Otherwise flawed in a general way? It is not for me to say, of course, although I do not wish to spend another day agonizing over such questions. Particularly when I believe I promised to have this wrapped up approximately 5 days ago, now._

 _Regardless. Thank you for reading "Spaceman", the first fan fiction I have written on this website, and my contribution to what I suppose has been called "Ectober". Inspired in part by the 59th anniversary of the launch of_ Sputnik _, and featuring Laika, from its follow-up mission_ Sputnik 2 _. If that were not clear enough._

 _I have been Workparty. Perhaps we shall meet again._

 _Updated 11/10/2016: Grammar pass_


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